1581

Stamboul will be much more suitable. Then, again, medicalmen have comparatively little work to do in Haidar Pasha,which is far from being densely populated. It would be

altogether a wise plan if the medical faculty were removedto Stamboul.May 24th.

___________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENTS.)

Bubozic Plag1le still a Menace to the Country.NOTWITHSTANDING the successful efforts of the health

authorities of San Francisco, aided by the officers of theNational Public Health Service, to control the bubonic

plague in that city there are evidences that the infection hasbeen carried to different localities over a wide area by groundsquirrels. Dr. Colby Rucker of the Public Health Service hasbeen organising a scouting expedition to determine just howfar the infection has spread, and preliminary reports of hiswork show a somewhat alarming condition, infected squirrelshaving been found in widely separated places in one county,with evidences that other counties are also involved. As theextermination of the squirrels is apparently impossible, thespread of the disease by the squirrels, prairie dogs, andother rodents depends solely upon whether they havesufficient tolerance to keep the bacilli alive, or whether theywill die off so quickly as to prevent the germs being carried.Much blame is attached to the authorities of San Franciscofor their efforts to conceal the presence of the plague longafter it was identified by the sanitary officers, thus prevent-ing active measures for its control and possible exterminationat an early period.

2ampering with the Xe7v PkarmaeoT&-ia,.Physicians and druggists throughout the country are

looking to the decennial meeting of the United StatesPharmacoposial Convention, which is soon to meet in

Washington, as the most important in the history of thatorganisation. This is the first meeting since the Food andDrug Act" was passed, which adopted for all drugs used inthe United States the standards of the United States Pbarma-

copoeia that is owned by the Pharmacopoeial Convention.

Meeting at the same time as the Convention is its most im-portant committee, known as the "Revision Committee,"which consists of 26 of the chief pharmacists and physiciansof the country, and is charged with the decennial revision ofthe Pharmacopoeia. So far-reaching is this meeting expectedto be that for months the medical and pharmaceuticaljournals of the country have been flooded with articles

bearing on the problems to be met at this time. It has beenalleged that when the Eighth Convention met in 1900 repeatedefforts were made to bribe members of the Revision Com-mittee in the interest of some particular drug or prescrip-tion, and that the temptations for unscrupulous manufacturersto repeat those methods of securing favourable mention asto their particular drugs are twofold greater now since theUnited States Government has adopted the Pharmacopoeiastandards. The chairman of the committee, Mr. Remington,of Philadelphia, spoke at a recent meeting of the Phil-

adelphia branch of the opportunities of its members to takebribes on the occasion of the last revision ; one man offeredhim 5000 dollars if he would change only two words inthe Pharmacopoeia ; another man said he was willing to givethousands of dollars for changes. Professor H. H. Rushby,of Columbia University, a prominent member, says thatwhen it was suggested about a year ago that attempts werecontemplated by interested parties to obtain action at thenext revision which would favour private interests, thesuggestion was treated with ridicule, but it is now beingrepeated from various directions. A person who is exception-ally well informed affirms that the attempts to manipulatethe ninth revision will exceed in strength and determinationall preceding efforts combined.

Compulsory Yaccmation against Tuberculosis.At the recent meeting of the " National Association for the

Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis," Professor A. S.Knopf called attention to two recently enacted State lawsdesigned to prevent the spread of tuberculosis. The first ofthese is in force in Nebraska and provides that poor persons

in that State suffering from tuberculosis must submit tovaccine-therapy. Professor Knopf obtained the opinions ofa large number of leading physicians in regard to the pro-priety of this law and found that it was universally con-demned. Dr. Trudeau, our highest authority on the treatmentof tuberculosis, replied that it seemed to him difficult tounderstand how any State can make compulsory any treat-ment of disease, and more especially a treatment like tuber-culin in tuberculosis, the benefit of which is as yet an openquestion, for tuberculin is not at all generally accepted bythe great majority of the profession. Dr. Simon Flexner,director of the Research Institute, said that he did notbelieve we possessed an experimental or observationalbasis which suffices to justify any Federal, State, or muni-cipal legislature in prescribing any- specific treatmentfor tuberculosis. The second law was passed by the legis-lature of the State of Oklahoma, which prohibits anyphysician suffering from tuberculosis, however slightly, frompractising his profession in that State. The law providesthat every physician who applies for a licence to practise inthat State must make an affidavit that he is not sufferingfrom tuberculosis in any form ; that he has not in the lastthree years lived in the house with or nursed anyone suffer-

ing from that disease. This affidavit must be accompaniedby the certificate or endorsement of a physician legallypractising in Oklahoma to the effect that he has known theapplicant for three years, and has made a thorough exa-mination and has found him to be free from tuberculosis.This law was pronounced ludicrous, oppressive, absurd,incredible, and unjust by Professor Welch, ProfessorJacobi, Professor Osler, Dr. Flexner, and many others fromwhom replies to a letter of inquiry were received.

Notable Honours tn a Martyr to Science and Humanity.Last week I mentioned the death of Dr. Howard Taylor

Ricketts of Chicago, at the age of 39 years, in the AmericanHospital, city of Mexico, on May 3rd, from typhus fever con-tracted while pursuing investigations regarding the causationof that disease. He is known to have been a tireless worker, andwas not in good physical condition when he went to Mexicoin April to complete work which he had begun. It is believedthat he contracted the disease from lice contaminated withthe germs of typhus. His death caused great sorrow in thecity of Mexico, especially in the Department of PublicInstruction and Fine Arts and in the medical corps.I have now the pleasure of recording the fact that thePresident of the Republic has resolved that the follow-ing honours should be shown the memory of thisheroic investigator : 1. The laboratory where he madehis investigations will be named Dr. Howard T. RickettsLaboratory." 2. The National School of Medicine, the

Bacteriologic, the Medical, and the Pathologic Instituteswere put in mourning three days. 3. A special commissionof those institutions accompanied the body to the railwaystation where a special car was provided. 4. The Depart-ment of Public Instruction and Fine Arts sent a specialdelegate to present to Mrs. Ricketts the expression of theMexican Government’s sorrow for the death of her eminenthusband. 5. The same department sent a flower crownwith this inscription, ° To the heroic investigator. Dr.H. T. Ricketts. Homage of the Department of PublicInstruction and Fine Arts, Mexico, May 3, 1910." TheNational Academy of Medicine suspended its weekly sessionand the President made a public panegyric on the courageousand unfortunate Dr. Ricketts.May 19th.

NOTES FROM INDIA.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENTS.)

Plague.THE plague returns for the week ending April 9th show

that throughout the whole of India the deaths numbered27,311, a decrease of 1182 as compared with the deaths inthe previous week. The mortality in the different provinceswas as follows :-Bombay Presidency, 779 ; Bengal, 2379 ;the United Provinces, 6893; the Punjab, 10,900 ; Burma,422 ; the Central Provinces, 322 ; Rajputana, 2110. Theworst areas in the United Provinces were Muttra district,821 ; Azamgarh district, 557; Ballia district, 602 ; Unao